


Gummy Bears

by Legs (InsanityRule)



Series: Nelson Belson's Declassified Junk Food Survival Guide [4]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4352972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityRule/pseuds/Legs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Um… Bighead you’re…” Richard joins him.</p><p>“I just want to play Call of Duty Richard.”</p><p>“Yeah but… but you’re crying again.”</p><p>“I can do both!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gummy Bears

**Author's Note:**

> This'll probably get an edit later but tired.

He isn’t sure if he manages to tell his assistant to call Richard or if he infers what Nelson wants from his gross crying but one minute he’s sobbing under his desk and the next Richard is there trying to coax him out from his hiding place. It’s not really that encouraging sounding and Richard is terrible at this, but Nelson’s still glad he’s here.

“Hey Bighead you… hey it’s… what’s…?” Nelson takes a shaky breath and puts his face against Richard’s shoulder. “Hey don’t… don’t cry.” Yeah that’s not really going to work. He pulls off his glasses and tosses them aside, they’re still broken so he doesn’t give a shit, and presses his face back against Richard.

“Do you, um… we could leave? Do you want to go home?” He doesn’t. He’s kind of afraid of running into Gavin on their way out. But he also doesn’t want to be at work anymore. He really doesn’t like either option but he settles on nodding.

Richard steps back and Nelson crawls out from under his desk. Richard pulls him into a quick, awkward hug, he rubs his face against Richard’s shirt before he pulls away. And now Richard is pulling off his jacket for some reason. Did he get snot on him? And now he’s handing it to him? What is going on? “Um… put up the hood. Well, you can if you want.”

He’s helping Nelson hide.

Richard looks so uncomfortable in just a tee shirt, and a Pied Piper one at that, but when Nelson tries to hand it back Richard won’t let him. He wipes his eyes and pulls the jacket on over his button down and pulls the hood up so it’s shading his eyes. They quickly walk through the Hooli campus and down to the bus st- car. Apparently Richard has a car now. That’s new.

“Hey, yeah we’re…” what is Richard-? He’s on the phone. Not what Nelson expected. “You’re better at this so… yeah we’ll be there soon.”

“This isn’t the way to my place?”

“Oh, um… no. No I… I have to pick someone up. Then we’ll go to your place.”

He’s not really thrilled about another person being around right now. “Who is it?” If he says Erlich Nelson’s jumping from the car.

“Jared. He… it won’t take long. He just… I think he can help. With whatever this is.”

Right. He didn’t actually tell him anything. “Gavin was using me.” His eyes start watering all over again. “He… he just wanted back at Hooli. And I’m the idiot that held the door for him.”

“Bighead…”

“N-” He almost corrected Richard to say Nelson. Because Gavin calls him Nelson. Because Gavin said he liked the name Nelson. Because he did everything Gavin wanted.

He doesn’t say another word as Richard parks at the incubator and Jared gets in the back seat. As Richard pulls up to Nelson’s driveway he takes a deep breath. He can pretend he’s pulled himself together enough to be a host. And it’s only Richard and Jared; they’re both quiet and sensitive, and Richard’s been his friend for ages. Jared’s kind of a mystery still, but Nelson trusts Richard so if he thinks Jared can help then he’s willing to give him a chance.

“Are you guys thirsty?”

“I can get us something.” Nelson watches Jared walk to the kitchen and grab a few glasses.

“I can get it. It’s my house.”

“No, it’s quite alright.” Jared starts filling the glasses with ice water.

Richard taps his shoulder and gestures to the table. Nelson follows Richard to the brightly lit breakfast nook and sits on the bench portion of the table. When a glass of water is placed in front of him he tosses back half the glass in one go. Crying really drained him.

“So, uh… what happened?” Honestly sometimes he wishes Richard wasn’t so blunt. “I mean… you-you said Gavin but… um, how do you feel?”

“Shitty. Can we not do this right now?” Or ever. Not talking about this ever again sounds pretty good to him. He wishes he knew how to compartmentalize better because he’s angry and upset and a small part of him wants Gavin to be here right now, but he also doesn’t think he can handle being around Gavin anytime soon.

“Many people find discussing something difficult to process helps to clear their heads.”

“It’s not hard to process. Gavin’s a huge prick.” He gets up from the table and grabs an XBox controller. “I don’t want to discuss anything. I just want to forget about today and play video games.”

“Um… Bighead you’re…” Richard joins him.

“I just want to play Call of Duty Richard.”

“Yeah but… but you’re crying again.”

“I can do both!” Nelson starts replaying a story mode level, and out of habit he works his way up to an easter egg that Gavin found. He can feel hot tears streaming down his cheeks and cool droplets pattering on his hands. He sniffs and wipes his face. Gavin liked finding the mistakes developers made. And he knew how to multitask really well in video games. If he sometimes jerked the controller to try and jump more he’d get embarrassed but it never really mattered because he’s better at games than Nelson. He said it’s about understanding human nature, about knowing what a developer wants you to think. His eyes burn. He starts throwing grenades for the hell of it and he hates this. Why can’t he just be mad? Why does he have to still want Gavin to show up and say he was kidding?

He’s such an idiot. This is how Gavin managed to fool him for so long.

His phone buzzes and he sets the controller down to answer the call, but the screen is lit up with Gavin’s photo, one Nelson stealth-took during breakfast because Gavin’s hair was messy, and he chucks his phone at the floor. It doesn’t break, he’d actually be kind of upset if it had, but it also doesn’t stop buzzing.

“Bighead-”

“I don’t want to talk to him.” It stops, but another call starts almost right after.

Jared reaches down and quietly hits ignore before picking up the phone. Nelson can hear the shut down noise ding. He should have been able to figure that out on his own.

“I’ve turned off your cell phone. It may be for the best given the current circumstances.”

His land line starts ringing.

“Maybe, um,” Richard huffs, “you could come to our place?”

\--

When Richard said ‘our place’ he expected them to go to the incubator, they did pick Jared up there, but instead Jared keeps driving and Nelson doesn’t recognize any of the streets the drive on. He’s pretty sure they left Palo Alto. He’s also pretty certain this will be better because Gavin won’t be able to contact him.

Eventually he’ll believe that’s a good thing.

They resume playing video games on Richard's PS3, but this time Nelson watches Richard play some of his more mindless games. The music is soothing, the colors very pleasing to the eye, and he falls asleep on the couch fairly quickly.

When he wakes up Richard is asleep on the other end of the couch. He scoots closer to the corner and sits up right as Jared enters the room with a couple blankets in hand. Jared smiles and drapes one of the blankets over Richard before offering the other to Nelson.

And then he kneels beside Richard and taps his shoulder. Richard snorts and leans up long enough for Jared to sit so he's leaning against the arm of the couch before he settles on Jared's chest.

So this is new.

“Are you two fucking?”

Jared tilts his head. “I suppose that is one facet, but I think a more encompassing description is we’re in a relationship.” He starts rubbing Richard's back. Should he have noticed this before? It feels kind of shitty that he didn't. Richard looks pretty happy, well he looks pretty passed out but he looks like he's sleeping alright. “How are you feeling?”

“Not great.”

Jared nods. “Understandable. I do have one question, do you prefer Nelson or Bighead? I've heard Richard refer to you as Bighead most of the time, but Nelson is your given name.”

“I,” he rubs his face, “honestly I don't know which sounds okay.” Neither? Both? He’s been going by Nelson for months because of Gavin. “Whichever you want I guess.”

“Alright. Did you require anything Nelson?”

“Nah, just tired.” And a little numb. He honestly isn't sure what he's feeling but it doesn't feel like anything. It's more like a void. But he also doesn't feel like he's going to start crying so that's a plus.

And he misses Gavin. It’s making his chest hurt.

“I don’t want to see Gavin ever again but I also miss him.”

Because it’s not like they actually ended their relationship, not yet. Except it kind of feels like they did.

“I’m sure that’s fairly common. Perhaps some more sleep will help clarify things?”

Sleep does sound really nice right now. “Do you have a guest room or am I on the couch?”

“I’m sorry, I should have shown you before sitting. We have a spare bed in the office down the hall. It’s the door on the left.”

Nelson nods and gets up off the couch. “Night.”

He gets all the way to the bedroom door when he realizes he doesn’t have his phone. It’s not that he really wants to talk with anyone, but he kind of wants to play some Tetris.

And maybe he wants to see if Gavin called again. Just curious.

He can hear some whispering as he walks to the living room. Nelson pauses and peeks around the corner. Richard’s awake, but barely, he’s looking pretty out of it; Nelson almost goes out there but then they kiss and he feels like he’s intruding. He turns around and waits in the guest room until he hears the door across the hall close. When he believes the coast is clear Nelson sneaks back out into the living room and grabs his phone. As he’s walking back he turns it on and about ten alerts scream at him.

That’s not what he expected.

And sure, about four of those are from company phones asking about him disappearing, he should really call in sick, but the rest are from Gavin. Four phone calls, Jesus, and two texts. He can’t help himself; he taps on the text icon and reads the two messages.

I called you in sick.

Oh. Well that’s…

You’re being an idiot. Where are you?

Great.

But maybe he’s worried? He should tell him.

No. No no no that’s not what he should do. It’s just what Gavin wants.

But why does he want that?

He crawls into bed and stares at the screen until it locks. Then he unlocks it and stares until it locks again.

This is just getting pathetic.

Richard’s.

Then he sets his phone aside and wraps around a pillow, ignoring when his phone buzzes beside him.

\--

He wakes up at six in the morning after some really shitty sleep. Maybe it should be called a series of naps. It’s like he blacked out periodically for a couple hours at a time.

And his phone is dead for some reason.

He plugs it in and abandons it, he isn’t patient enough to wait for it to charge enough, and goes out to the kitchen to get food.

“Oh, good morning.” Jared waves a spatula and returns to whatever he’s cooking. Richard is sitting at the breakfast bar drinking some milk. “I’m making some pancakes. Do you want any blueberries or chocolate chips?”

What he really wants are some gummy bears, his favorite are the white ones, but those probably don’t work well in pancakes. “Blueberries. Don’t you guys have to work? Shit, I mean Jared. You have work right?”

“I’ll be going in shortly. If you have work that needs completed I can swing by Hooli and pick it up on my way home.”

“Nah it should be fine.” Gavin’s there and he probably knows how to forge Nelson’s signature if anything is urgent.

“Alright. Give me a call if you change your mind. While I’m gone maybe you two can discuss this whole Gavin situation?”

Well that sounds awful.

Jared serves them both blueberry pancakes and quickly eats a few of his own before kissing Richard and hurrying out the door to get to Pied Piper. He’s not going to lie he’s kind of jealous of Richard right now.

“So is this pretty normal?”

“Well sometimes he makes waffles.”

He really misses Gavin’s omelets. Gavin always hid things that were good for him in them but it didn’t matter because they were so good.

“How long has this been a thing anyway?”

“Oh um,” Richard looks like he’s counting or maybe he’s constipated, “about a year? That sounds right. I haven’t really been a day counter.”

Why didn’t Richard tell him? “Dude I told you about Gavin after like, two weeks.”

“I don’t know. We wanted to see where it went. And then we moved in together. And I guess it just… it never came up.”

“Dude your my best friend.”

“Well yeah.” Is he not getting it? “Jared’s um… you’d want to do stuff together but… but you’re always around Gavin.”

“Oh.”

“At your party, well, Gilfoyle didn’t help. He just walked off after… he whispered ‘this guy tried to get your company and he’s fucking your best friend’ and then he just… left. And Gavin brought up me… he asked how it felt to be fired and… he was a jerk.”

This is not what he wants to hear. Wait, no, shouldn’t he want this? Richard is agreeing with him after all. Gavin was a jerk. He used him.

Crap this is confusing.

“I got freaked out and… and you’ve been letting him tell you what to do. I threw up a little bit. I was worried.”

“He’s my advisor. Well, now he is. Before he just… gave me advice.” Maybe those are the same thing. Now he just gets paid to tell Nelson what to do. “Sorry.”

“Jared was there, so…” Richard shrugs. “It was okay.”

“Cool.” He sighs. “We’re not going to talk about Gavin right?”

“Don’t have to.”

“Good. So what do you do all day?”

Honestly he’s kind of worried Richard just sits around slowly losing his mind.

“I uh… I just kind of do stuff. You know, whatever I want since I don’t work. I started a new algorithm. Want to see?”

They spend the entire day messing with Richard’s algorithm and playing games and ignoring the times when Nelson would get quiet and mopey.

Jared shows up around five and starts making them supper. “Did you have any luck clearing your head Nelson?”

“Huh?” Oh yeah Jared thought they would talk about Gavin. He’s a clever guy, he can wing it. “Well, you know what? Fuck him.” Yeah this sounds good. It feels like he’s going somewhere. “We had a good thing. Lots of sex-”

“Bighead I don’t-”

“And he calls it a fling? Fuck that.”

“What exactly constitutes a fling?” Ha, Jared doesn’t know what a… wait Nelson doesn’t either.

Richard is typing into his laptop. “There’s too many options.”

“Do the urban dictionary one it’s probably right.”

Jared leans over and reads aloud. “deliberately short-term sexual relationship between two people. No deep personal involvement required, just the sex and a bit of attention. This seems to imply an emphasis on sexual encounters.”

Huh.

“What percentage of your time together would you classify as sexual in nature?”

“Well not… it’s not that much.”

“Bighead how long have you… when did you start,” Richard makes this horrible lewd gesture and immediately looks embarrassed.

“Well I guess the first date? But we really didn’t call it a date. I bought him dinner because he was helping me with Hooli stuff.”

Jared straightens. “Are you certain it wasn’t a fling? There’s nothing wrong with wanting a purely physical relationship.”

“It wasn’t, isn’t, not a fling. We did plenty of relationship things.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you Nelson. We’re just attempting to get a better understanding of the details.”

“It’s not a fling.” But he can’t think of why that’s the case. “Because he. Oh, he met my parents?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? He’s met his parents? Gavin didn’t have a choice they were coming to his award ceremony regardless.

Did he really just have his wires crossed for almost a year?

But there’s the omelets. And they play video games together all the time. And Gavin helps cheer him up when he’s upset or worked up. And he loves Gavin. He misses him. He wants to see him.

“Nelson? Has this discussion upset you?”

What? He wipes his cheek. “Oh.”

He hurries past Richard and Jared and locks himself in their office. Nelson lies down with his face in a pillow. Why didn’t he say something to Gavin earlier? Something about how he feels? Anything?

He’s such an idiot.

\--

Nelson wakes up with dry eyes and a headache. Someone covered him with a blanket and he smiles because Gavin always does this when he falls asleep. It’s so nice.

Wait.

“Fuck.”

He rolls over and grabs his phone to check his messages. When he turns it on the alerts go off; a couple emails, a missed call from Hooli but no message, and one call from Gavin.

Gavin left a voicemail.

Gavin called at two in the morning and left him a voicemail.

“Hey. The board is starting to wonder where you went. They wanted to know if you were alright.” He sounds so awkward where’s the confident Gavin and does he know he has a clone? “We should probably talk business. See you.”

That was weird. Is that what people normally call to tell you at two in the morning?

Why did he sound so nervous?

Nelson walks out to the living room; it’s nighttime but it’s not that late, only nine or so. Richard and Jared are sitting on the couch watching something on TV.

“Oh, how are yo-”

“I think Hooli thinks Gavin killed me.” Well that was a bit extreme they look horrified. “What do I do?”

“Well given the confusion relating to the nature of your relationship, and now your sudden absence being called into question, perhaps it would be best if you spoke with Gavin.”

Yeah that’s what he was afraid of. “I don’t know what to say.”

Richard shrugs. “Well I guess you make him wait till you do.”

\--

He stays at Richard and Jared’s for another day to organize his thoughts. Well he thought about it a little. Most of the time he sat around eating gummy bears.

He’s tossing around a hacky sack and talking with Richard. “But why was he freaked out?”

Richard makes a weird face. “Who said he was freaked out?”

“His message was super weird.” And really late at night to tell Nelson the board was worr- “That son of a bitch!”

“Woah what?”

“He’s the one that’s worried! Dude, Richard, it scared him.”

“Did it?”

“Oh come on Richard. You’re my friend, and that means you have to agree with me.”

“I don’t think-”

“I gotta go talk to him Richard. Can you bring me to Hooli?”

“Jared has the car. And I hate having to drive and… you really want to have this talk at Hooli?”

Okay Richard has a fair point.

Nelson takes the bus over to the closest stop to Gavin’s mansion, and then walks the entire way so he can pace back and forth for an hour while he waits for Gavin to arrive. It’s nearly six when Gavin pulls into the driveway. He’s barely talked with Gavin at all this week after the whole ‘I want you to be an adviser’ thing went down. He’s also realizing he might look like garbage because these are definitely the same clothes he had on two days ago.

Gavin definitely saw him when he was pulling up to the garage. And he definitely has a weird look on his face. “Nelson?”

“Uh, who else would I be?”

He shakes his head and unlocks the door for them. “Come in.”

Nelson strides in. He is so ready for this conversation.

“Does Richard live in a fucking cave?”

“What?” Gavin points to the mirror in the foyer. Nelson turns around and- “Holy shit!” He hasn’t shaved in a week. His hair is greasy. His clothes are rumpled. How the hell did this happen? “What the fuck Richard didn’t say anything! Either he’s my best friend or a giant dick!”

“Well you know what I’d lean towards.”

“Jesus I’m using your razor.” He walks up to Gavin’s master bathroom and starts lathering his face. “Wow I look like shit.”

“Does this happen to you every time you have to make a difficult decision.”

“Only when someone’s being a massive prick about the decision.” He finishes up lathering his face and starts shaving away his gross facial hair. He can see Gavin scowling in the mirror. “Don’t look at me like that. You told me to pick between a relationship and a job.”

“Nelson-”

“Why can’t I have both?” He turns around, only half shaven. “Things were great. Why the fuck would I choose one?”

“You offered me a job.”

“So?” Honestly he just wanted Gavin to be compensated for doing all that shit for him.

Gavin’s doing that thing where he rubs his eyes when he thinks Nelson’s being an idiot. “Do you even know what nepotism is?”

“Uh.” Well crap now he does look like an idiot. “Yes?” And that’s not a happy Gavin look. “Okay fine I don’t know but who cares?”

“Preferential treatment, and who cares? The board. Employees. The law.”

“What.”

“Did you think I was fucking with you about your job?”

Well this isn’t really going how he thought it would.

“Well then, I guess if I have to… I quit.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I don’t care about the money. Or the job. Honestly I have way too many responsibilities now. If I have to choose between a relationship and work, well I choose the relationship.”

Gavin looks shocked. “Do something for me. Take out your phone.”

“What you’re going to kick me out? Gotta call my ride?”

“Just take out your damn phone.” Jeez he’s being pushy. Nelson digs out his phone. “Scroll to our earliest messages.”

“What the hell that’s so many.”

“Just do it.”

He scrolls to the very top, which nearly froze his phone. “Great now what?”

“Just skim, you’ll get the idea.”

This is so dumb. He starts reading. Let’s see, come help, help plz, help help help. Okay this was when he was panicking. Right, oh here’s when they started dating. Come over. Come here, come over, I’m coming- what the hell?

“My phone probably deleted all the other-”

“How many of those were followed by sex?”

What. The. Fuck.

“Holy shit was this a fling? I had you meet my parents.”

“I wasn’t sure what your motivations on that were.”

“Well fuck.” He’s getting kind of worked up again. “But I like you. I think I love you!”

Well he knows that but maybe this won’t freak Gavin out as much.

“I suggest you say that out loud in the future.”

“Wait, does that mean with you or-” Gavin’s kissing him this is a good sign. “Oh man I love you.”

A few seconds is the future right?

“You need to finish shaving.” Right. He turns back to the mirror and works on his face. “You’re not quitting your job.”

“Well what other choice do we have?” He washes his face and hops up on the counter. “And you're not off the hook that easy because you’re still a jerk okay? I cried. A lot. It sucked.”

“I’m-” Gavin takes a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“Woah huh?”

“I’m not repeating myself.” Nelson hops off the counter and hugs him. Forgiven? No. No way. He’s still kind of mad. Upset? It’s one of those. But they’re together so that’s a plus. They’ll figure it out. “When is the last time you showered?”

Crap.

\--

“So, why am I here?”

“Richard just start reading emails okay?”

It’s so simple. They just have to make sure he didn’t send anything incriminating on company machines, figure out if anyone at Hooli knows, and then in about two weeks submit a form to HR for a relationship starting after Gavin was hired.

“Bighead this is definitely illegal.”

So it’s a little bit of a skeevy move on their part. He doesn’t really give a flying fuck right now.

“Just look Richard okay?”

“I can’t believe you…” he gets out his cellphone.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling Jared so he can help.”

Nelson smiles. “Thanks man.” He looks back down to his emails. “Maybe I should just purge the entire system. Can Gilfoyle do that?”

“Why the fuck are we doing this by hand anyway?”

“Because I don’t remember what I would have said and if it’s a weird thing like your fricken girlfriend laptop it could slip through the cracks.”

Because Gavin told him to do it this way since his entire texting history slipped his mind. Probably a good call.

“So um… you guys are good?”

“Getting there.” Not one hundred percent, probably around eighty. But he stayed over and they didn’t have sex. They actually talked which was kind of cool. He kind of wanted to have sex though.

Maybe tonight.

“How many forward emails do you send to people?”

“Hey chain emails are funny. And they gave me the whole email for Hooli.”

“Bighead that’s hundreds of people.” He nods. That sounds about right. “You’re an asshole.”

Well, he is a CEO. And he’s dating Gavin. And apparently sending twenty forwards a day is a bit much.

Oh, and he planted a fake email inviting Gavin over for sex in Richard’s pile.

“I think I can deal with that.”


End file.
